the obama administration said last week that syria's government appears to have used chemical weapons. the white house had previously said the use of chemical weapons would represent a red line. clarissa ward has reported extensively from inside syria. she joins us now. clarissa what are syrians saying about this red line? >> reporter: well, syrians who support the opposition have been saying for months now that they believe that the regime has been using chemical weapons in attacks against them am but at the same time even with this growing tide of intelligence from britain, from france, from israel and now from the u.s. which appears to support their claim, they don't really expect to see any fundamental shift in u.s. policy inside syria which of course up until this point has favored a really hands-off approach. and the problem there is that if ordinary syrian citizens are drawing that conclusion you can be pretty sure that president assad is making similar calculations when he's working out just how far can push that red line. >> jeff: so there is frustration from inside syria abo